


the ongoing trials of two idiots in love

by gothyringwald, socknonny



Series: harringrove holidays [5]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Breaking Up & Making Up, Established Relationship, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, POV Alternating, Post-Break Up, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 15:50:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17790278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gothyringwald/pseuds/gothyringwald, https://archiveofourown.org/users/socknonny/pseuds/socknonny
Summary: Five times they fucked up Valentine's Day and one time they got it right.





	the ongoing trials of two idiots in love

**Author's Note:**

> Happy valentine's Harringrovers!

**1985**

 

The window display at Melvald’s is all red hearts and pink cupids. Their fluffy white wings hold them aloft, gleaming gold arrows gripped in chubby hands pointing toward stands overflowing with heart-shaped boxes of candy and bouquets of blood-red roses.

It’s the kind of thing that’s always made anticipation thrill through Steve but this year it unsettles him. Leaves him uncertain, indecisive. It’s the first Valentine’s Day since he and Nancy broke up, the first since he and Billy started doing...whatever it is they’re doing.

Last year he strode into Melvald’s assured, bought Nancy the biggest bunch of roses and the biggest box of candy, and they were received with a happy smile. If Steve wonders, now, if the smile was all show, he tries not to dwell on it.

But Billy…Billy’s a _guy_. Guys don’t get flowers and candy, not even on Valentine’s Day. And the thought of giving them to Billy in particular, is absurd. Steve’s more likely to get a punch in the nose than a kiss on the mouth.

His girlfriends had always cooed over their gifts—except for Nancy who would never coo—and Steve happily accepted their perfumed kisses, the warm press of their bodies, as they thanked him. It was all he wanted.

But maybe it’s different when a guy is dating another guy. The problem is Steve doesn’t know what to do with a—maybe, possibly—boyfriend, and there’s no one he can turn to for advice. No one he knows who has done this, except for Billy. And he can’t ask Billy. He’s not even sure they’re dating. Steve likes to hope that’s what they’re doing but Billy is almost impossible to read outside of bed and Steve has no idea if he feels the same.

He presses his forehead to the store’s window and sighs. There’s a week until Valentine’s Day. That has to be enough time to figure it out.

February usually crawls by but this year it flies and Steve’s heart sinks further with each quickly passing day. When the 14th rolls around he’s a mess. His mind is a whirl and his stomach churns and he can’t concentrate on any of his classes. He still hasn’t figured out the Billy problem and he’s not sure that he will any time soon.

He hasn’t had a chance to talk to Billy, yet, but after third period, Billy sidles up to him when he’s getting some books from his locker. There’s a card shoved in the grates and Steve pulls it out, opens it up. He’s steadily acquired a small stack of them during the day. None from Billy, of course. Even if it was the kind of thing Steve thinks Billy might do, he wouldn’t be able to do it at school.

Billy snorts and flicks the card. “Who’s that from?”

Steve shrugs. “A ‘secret admirer’ apparently,” he says, pointing to the signature. The only clue to its author is the cloying, floral perfume spritzed on the envelope but it smells like so many of the girls at Hawkins High. Steve doesn’t care who it’s from, anyway.

Billy grunts and crosses his arms over his chest **.**

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Steve says, lowering his voice. “I bet you got a bunch, too.” He wants to take Billy’s hand, pull him close, but he can’t.

Billy shrugs one shoulder. “A few. They don’t mean anything either.”

Steve looks at Billy as closely as he can in the school hallway. If he hadn’t spent the past month studying Billy’s face, he’d probably miss the uncertainty in his eyes. It occurs to him that maybe Billy _could_ want a Valentine’s from him. That maybe flowers and candy are on the cards after all.

“I know,” Steve says, finally, and Billy’s lip ticks up. Steve’s pulse flutters.

“Hey, speaking of Valentine’s, we should watch _My Bloody Valentine_ , tonight.” Billy’s eyes are brighter, his shoulders looser.

“That sounds like a horror movie,” Steve says, grabbing his books from his locker and shoving the anonymous Valentine on top of the others in there. “You know I don’t like horror movies.”

“I’ll let you hold my hand in the scary bits,” Billy says, sotto voce.

Steve laughs and rolls his eyes. “Sure,” he says and the bell rings.

Billy starts walking off and says, “I’ll bring it over tonight.”

Steve watches him walk down the hall and then he shuts his locker, feeling a little of the weight in his chest lift.

After school, he walks into Melvald’s not entirely assured, but not entirely discouraged either. There is still some lingering doubt—maybe it would be better to get Billy a record, or something, but then Steve knows nothing about Billy’s music and doesn’t want to make a fool of himself—but not enough to deter him.

All he wants is to show Billy that this thing between them means something to Steve. That _Billy_ means something to him, not like those dumb cards he got from the girls at school. And this is the only way he knows how.

He buys the biggest, reddest bunch of roses, and a large box of candy on his way home, and when he pulls into his drive, Billy’s Camaro is already there. Steve’s heart skips and he cuts the ignition. He grabs the flowers and candy from the passenger seat and gets out of the car. There’s no way to hide what he’s holding, no way to keep it a surprise, so he doesn’t try.

Even though Billy’s gaze is shielded by his aviators, Steve can feel Billy watching him from the doorstep and as he gets closer he notes the furrow in Billy’s brow, the hard line of his jaw. Steve’s stomach feels like jello and his hold on the flowers slackens.

“What’s that?” Billy juts his chin in the direction of the flowers and candy.

“Flowers,” Steve says, face warming, “and candy.”

“No shit,” Billy says. He’s still got his sunglasses on and his voice is careful, clipped. “Who’re they for? Got some girl on the side?”

“Of course not,” Steve says. “They’re for you.”

Billy snorts. “You got me candy and flowers. How cute.” He takes his sunglasses off, now, tucks them into the pocket of his leather jacket. “Are you kidding me?”

“No, I thought—”

Billy grabs the flowers and candy from Steve’s loose hold. “Am I meant to fall to my knees? Swoon?” He rips the head off one of the roses and throws the petals into the air. “Whatever it is your _girlfriends_ do.”

Steve’s heart is in his throat. “What?”

Billy throws the flowers and candy to the ground. He stabs a finger into Steve’s chest. “I’m not your bitch, Harrington.”

The words hit Steve like a punch to the gut. “I never said you were.”

Billy stalks away, kicking the flowers and candy, scattering them everywhere. He doesn’t look back at Steve once as he gets in his car and drives away.

Steve is left standing on his porch, feeling like the bottom of his stomach has fallen out. It’s over, it’s all over, and he doesn’t even know what he did wrong.

His throat is tight as he clears up the forlorn Valentine’s candies, scoops them back into the box, then throws them into the trash along with the flowers and the tacky cellophane wrapping covered in little red hearts. The sight of them makes him want to puke.

He considers staying home the next day, but he’s got a test he can’t miss, and so he drags himself to school. Avoids Billy as best he can. But halfway through the day, Billy pulls him into a supplies closet, grip strong and purposeful.

For one moment Steve thinks that Billy is going to threaten him—the first time they’d had sex Billy had said “You tell anyone about this and I’ll end you,” and Steve had rolled his eyes and asked Billy why, exactly, he thought Steve would want anyone to know—but Billy stays silent. He grabs Steve’s face in one hand, his palm curved over Steve’s jaw, thumb pushing over Steve’s mouth. It looks like he’s going to say something but then he shakes his head and sinks to his knees.

“Fuck,” Steve says, hands braced on the shelf behind him, “ _Billy_.”

They leave separately with the promise of meeting up again later. They don’t talk about the Valentine’s Day incident, and things more or less go back to normal, but Steve becomes more careful with his gestures of affection. Doesn’t want to push Billy away again. Do...whatever it is that he did wrong.

He can’t shake the thought that Billy means more to him than Steve does to Billy, and it slowly tears him apart.

 

__

 

**1986**

 

Billy fucking hates Valentine’s Day. The only good thing about the insipid holiday is that he’s managed to cultivate enough of an asshole image that none of the girls he happens to be stringing along at the time expect him to do anything for it. Not that he supposes it would matter too much if they did, because it would just be fake.

Because that’s what Valentine’s Day is. It’s fake.

The wooden bench beneath him is ice cold, like he’s sitting on frozen metal, but he stays seated out of some sort of perverse punishment to himself while he watches the shoppers walk in and out of Melvald’s. At least one out of every three leaves with some form of heart-shaped gift, and Billy has burned through half a pack of cigarettes while trying to build up enough momentum to march in there and do the same. He stubs out his last cigarette, slides his zippo into his back pocket where he can’t keep reflexively lighting it out of nerves, and stands up. He stares at the front door, at the obnoxious hearts gilding the entrance, at the display of white teddy bears he can see two feet through the door.

He can’t do it. Every time he thinks of buying something, his stomach turns with nausea at the thought of taking part in something so vapid. Something so insulting. And of course, thinking about chocolates and flowers just makes him remember how horribly it went last year.

His chest still tightens in anger whenever he thinks of that, rage burning a steady line up his throat, like he’s about to vomit pure aggression. It mixes with shame and the horrible ache of sadness that always hits him when he realises he doesn’t mean as much to Steve as Steve means to him. To Steve, their relationship has slotted into the same place as all the shitty, pathetic relationships he’s had with girls. The ones where he fulfils the role of doting protector and they fulfil the role of adoring carer.

Billy has seen him with his ex, seen him flirting with other chicks before they got together. It’s all bullshit. He doesn’t know how the fuck his relationship with Steve could possibly have come to mean that when to Billy it’s…everything. It’s fire and heat and the ache of recognition you feel in a cracked mirror above the sink in a dirty bar toilet. To Steve, it’s token gifts and obligatory romance pre-marked on the calendar by corporations.

But that’s all right. He’ll take what he can get because it’s Steve, and because Billy is so far gone he wouldn’t know how to quit if he tried.

So, since it’s Billy’s fault that Valentine’s day went so badly, he’s going to try to make up for it. Steve likes the stupid holiday with its dumb traditions, and while Billy can’t give Steve the sort of things he apparently wants, he can at least romance him in his own way. Or whatever.

He shoves his hands in his pockets and strides back to the Camaro. Ever since he moved to Hawkins, the only piece of comfort he’s had is his car. He drove it from California himself; every time he looks in the rear view, he can still remember the sight of the beach falling behind him. It hurts, but it’s also a promise because one day the mirror will show Hawkins instead. On nights when he can’t sleep, Billy drives and drives and thinks of his promise.

Billy can’t buy Steve chocolates, but he can take him on one of his midnight drives. He hasn’t shared that with Steve yet. They’ve met in various places to hook up under the cover of darkness, but Steve has always picked the place and Billy has simply come running. This time Billy will drive, and maybe he’ll tell Steve a little about California too.

The taste of bile lingers in his mouth as he tears out of the parking lot. Just the thought of one of those tacky boxes of chocolate sitting on the seat beside him makes him want to drive straight into a tree. He turns up the music, Halford wailing, and revs harder, drowning out his thoughts with as much noise as possible.

When he pulls up outside of Steve’s house, Steve is already waiting, presumably summoned by the roar of the Camaro. There is a small crease between his eyebrows, and a hint of what could be fear. The anger in Billy’s chest burns at the sight, covering the guilt that surges in his stomach.

He cuts the engine and steps out the car, leans on the door and regards his…whatever the fuck Steve is to him. There’s a word for it, a word he whispers to himself in the quiet of the night when he’s half asleep, but he can’t think it in the daytime.

“Come for a drive,” he says finally, when Steve has made no move to approach the car, hands on his hips, gaze flicking between Billy and the tire marks he left on the way up the drive.

“I thought we didn’t have plans,” Steve says.

“Things change.”

“I might be busy.”

Billy shrugs, looking over Steve’s shoulder rather than at him directly. “Are you?”

There’s a long pause, and eventually Steve shakes his head. “Let me get my coat.”

Billy drops back into the car and starts the ignition. Priest kicks back into gear and he turns it down because he knows how much Steve finds Halford’s voice grating. Sure, he’s wrong and Halford is amazing, but still. Billy turns it down. Because that’s what you do when you love someone.

When Steve buckles himself in and shuts the door, Billy even focuses on driving smoothly. He doesn’t over-rev the engine or do any of the other reckless and over the top things he does when he’s feeling like this, like he might vibrate out of his skin if he doesn’t take control of _something_.

He’s driving more carefully than he ever has, and for some reason Steve is clutching the edge of his seat in a white-knuckled grip. They’ve driven sixty miles an hour down dirt roads in this baby, and Steve’s had his head out the window laughing into the breeze, but Billy driving with care is setting him on edge.

Billy grinds his teeth and cuts down a back alley that he knows will take him to the highway without meeting another soul on the way. He slows down even further and Steve’s fingers grip tighter and he’s so fucking angry he can’t breathe. What is this? What is he doing? He takes a breath, lets it out through his nose with his jaw clenched and his eyes—now wet at the corners—hidden behind his aviators.

What is he doing? He’s trying. Because Steve is worth it.

“Did I tell you I drove here from California?”

His voice sounds like it’s been drowned in whiskey and dragged across broken glass. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him.

Steve turns to him, his face twisted into a funny expression Billy doesn’t understand. “Well I assumed you didn’t walk,” he says.

Billy chews the corner of his lip. Part of him loves Steve’s sass—always has, always will—but the other part is ice-cold, frozen still and shaking with the certainty that something is coming and it isn’t good.

He intends to tell Steve about the lane that runs behind the old Miller house, where the vines have wound their way along the sweeping branches of the trees and it feels like you’re driving through a tunnel that leads from one world to another. Instead, what comes out of his mouth is, “What crawled up your ass and died, Harrington?”

Steve makes a disbelieving noise in the back of his throat. “What?”

“You got somewhere to be?” _Some chick you’d rather be with?_

“Bit late to ask if I’ve got plans, don’t you think?”

Billy slams on the brakes. The car skids to a halt, dust flying up behind them. On the edge of the horizon, Billy can see the turn-off that will take them to the tunnel lane, but he’s no longer sure they’re going to make it. No longer sure he wants to.

“What’s wrong, Steve?”

When he’s angry, he adds more distance. Says ‘Harrington’ instead of ‘Steve’, and peppers his questions with insults in the hope that the other person will hit first instead of noticing how much Billy needs an answer. He doesn’t do either of those things, and the words reek of vulnerability. He waits for Steve to notice, his entire body tense at the thought that he might have actually been seen.

He needn’t have worried. Steve doesn’t see at all. Instead, it’s like everything in him explodes all at once, sending poisonous shards in all directions.

“What’s _wrong_ ?” Steve stares at him, chest heaving and eyes bright with a wetness that Billy thinks might be rage rather than sadness. “It’s— it’s— It’s Valentine’s Day, you asshole! Okay, fine, you didn’t want chocolates. Didn’t want anything that would make you feel like _my bitch_. Sure. Whatever. Did you even think about what I want?”

“Sounds like you know everything, Harrington. How about you tell me what I think?”

Steve ignores him. “How about I don’t want to be dragged out on another booty call in the middle of the woods where you’d rather get covered in dirt and— and— rotten leaves than risk anyone seeing us?”

Billy doesn’t drag Steve out. Steve calls and Billy goes running, like he’s Steve’s bitch.

“Do you know what would happen if someone saw us?” Billy’s voice sounds strange to his own ears. Like it belongs to a stranger.

“Not a damn clue!” Steve yells. “Because it’s never happened, because it’s never going to happen, because I’m nothing but a dirty little secret to you. Are you still fucking girls on the side, Billy? Because everyone in Hawkins seems to think so, and I’m starting to wonder why I don’t.”

“Grow the fuck up, Harrington!” Billy’s voice still doesn’t sound like his, but at least it’s loud like his. “Are you seriously bitching over a box of shitty chocolates? Is that what this is about? If you’re that desperate for the nuclear fucking family with Church on Sundays and a packed lunch every day, you’re in the wrong place and you know it.”

Steve deflates, but it doesn’t fill Billy with relief. It doesn’t make him feel like the argument is over. The frozen part of him is so cold it has taken over his entire body, rendering him nothing but a statue made of ice, capable only of speech in a foreign voice. Something is coming.

“We’re done, Billy.”

There it is.

Steve opens the car door, and he lingers for half a second. Billy feels like if he could only find the right words he might be able to stop this, but for the first time in his life he doesn’t have anything to say.

Steve gets out of the car and slams the door behind him.

 

__

 

**1987**

“Honey, I’m home,” Steve calls out as he slams the door shut against the blistering cold. He takes off his hat, sets it on the hall stand. “Oh, that’s right,” he mutters to himself when no one answers, “I’m single.”

He shrugs off his coat, then bends to pick up a piece of paper that falls from the pocket, fluttering to the floor. It’s a flier for a Valentine’s Day dance at the town hall. He crushes the paper to a ball in his fist.

Steve used to love Valentine’s Day but after the past two disastrous years he’s sworn off it for good. He could almost kid himself he’s glad to be single and out of the Valentine’s game. Almost.

But standing in the cavernous entry hall of his parents’ house, completely alone on a Saturday night, the weight of his loneliness is overwhelming. Crushing.

His parents are out of town for the weekend having taken themselves on some romantic retreat. It’s supposed to bring them closer together again but will likely only see them bickering all weekend and come home not talking to each other. Nancy and Jonathan are away at college. All the kids have dates, which is fucking depressing. He can’t even hang out with Robin—pretending he isn’t desperately longing for love while she makes fun of the cliches in romantic movies and they eat way too much pie—because she’s moved on to greener pastures than Hawkins. Just like...

Steve runs a hand over his face and makes his way upstairs with the intention of changing into sweatpants and one of his thick, knitted sweaters. The ones he only wears at home because they’re a little dorky but they’re warm and comfortable and he needs to be warm and comfortable, right now.

But when he digs into his drawer, he finds an old shirt that doesn’t belong to him. It’s soft in his hands and his throat goes tight. He’d meant to get rid of it, a hundred times, but he could never bring himself to. It had been left in his room after an afternoon of passion, and instead of returning it, he’d secreted it away. Kept it as a token of remembrance.

Now it’s only a token of another failed love.

He pulls it on, without another thought, and considers crawling into bed, sleeping the rest of the sorry day away, but he makes himself go back downstairs. He should eat.

There is a pile of takeout menus by the phone in the kitchen, dogeared and fading. Steve’s mom keeps tidying them away into a drawer, where they can’t be seen, and Steve keeps bringing them out onto the counter. He doesn’t know why.

Steve slides one out from the middle of the pile, not caring where he orders from, and dials the number at the top.

It rings four times before someone picks up and, in a voice too cheerful to be anything but forced, says, “Perry’s Pizza, how can I help you?”

“Uh, hi,” Steve says turning the menu over in his hand, “I wanna place a takeout order.”

“Sure thing. Would you like to hear about our Valentine’s Day deal for you and that special someone?”

Steve clenches his hand around the menu. “How about the sad loser special?” he mutters.

“Um, pardon?” the voice says and then, “…is that you, Steve?”

Steve hangs up. “Fuck’s sake.” He thunks his head against the wall, once, then twice. “I need to get out of this fucking town.”

The thing is, he didn’t have to be alone tonight. Linda at the office is throwing a party and invited Steve. Said it wouldn’t matter if he didn’t bring someone because she had plenty of single friends. And Sandra in accounting had shyly asked him to join her for dinner.

He’d told Linda maybe and told Sandra thank you, but no. The thought of a date on Valentine’s Day is too much. It’s not like he hasn’t been dating at all the past year but that’s all it’s been. One date after another, one girl after another. After Nancy and Billy he’s starting to wonder if maybe he’s just not relationship material. Or if he’s just doomed to fall for people who don’t love him back.

His stomach rumbles and he rummages through the cupboards, then pours himself a bowl of cereal, glaring at the cheerful colours of the sugary breakfast food, and takes it into the living room.

He turns the television on, cycling through the channels—wincing when he flicks past a scene of a couple passionately embracing—and settles on watching the game, even though it reminds him of Billy. The way he always pushed him on the court, made Steve’s blood boil and made him want to be a better player just to spite Billy. How they became even more competitive once they got together. All the games of one on one they played once school let out, how beautiful Billy looked sweaty and determined and baying for Steve’s blood.

How Steve hasn’t picked up a basketball since last February.

Fuck.

It’s been an entire year and everything still reminds him of Billy. Everything still hurts, even if it’s a dull ache now. Not the sharp, snarled pain he’d felt when he shut the door of Billy’s Camaro and walked away. That pain had winded him and it had taken him weeks to catch his breath. The dull ache is worse, because it never goes away.

Steve doesn’t know where Billy is, now. He moved away not long after their breakup, last year, and Steve hasn’t heard from him since. Max mentions him sometimes but everything turns to white noise whenever Billy’s name is mentioned and so, for all Steve knows, Billy could be a lounge singer in Las Vegas.

The image makes Steve snort but the amusement is short lived. He turns the television off, sets the bowl of cereal on the coffee table—milk sloshing onto the dark wood—and lies down.

It took him a while to figure it out but he eventually got where it all went wrong with Nancy. Some of it was his fault, sure—he let his own fear push her grief for Barb and her need to find justice for her friend aside—but most of it was just incompatibility. The wrong girl, the wrong time.

But Billy. Billy is a conundrum. Steve still can’t figure if he should have been so surprised it went wrong, or if he was an idiot for thinking anything between the two of them could go right in the first place. It’s pathetic. And it’s not fair. Why does he have an uncanny knack of falling in love with people who don’t—who can’t—love him back?

Love. His stomach churns. How did he fall in love with Billy Hargrove?

There are so many questions he doesn’t have the answer to but there is one thing Steve knows for certain: he is going to die alone.

Completely, utterly alone.

 

__

 

**1988**

The last time Billy saw Steve, it was in the rear vision mirror of the Camaro when Billy left him behind for good. For an entire year, he kept thinking he caught sight of him on random street corners, in the grocery store, behind him in line for the cinema. It’s even more pathetic than it should be because, now that Billy has left Hawkins, and the threat of his dad is behind him, he no longer has anything to prevent him from realising just how much he wants to be with Steve.

Not hook up with him, not fuck him, just be with him. In the cinema, walking down the street, in line at the goddamn grocery store, all Billy wants is Steve. He can’t even point to where they went wrong. Oh, he knows it’s because of him, but he can’t work out _why._ He doesn’t understand how he managed to get under Steve’s skin so badly, made Steve hate him so much, when he honest to god wasn’t trying to hurt him.

God, Billy tried so hard not to hurt him.

He stubs out his cigarette on the ashtray on the corner of the bar, face carefully impassive so as to reveal nothing about the thoughts that won’t quit hounding him. It’s all because he keeps thinking he’s caught sight of Steve on the other side of the crowded room, but that’s impossible. For one thing, this is Chicago, and last he heard Steve was still stuck in that shithole, Hawkins. For another, this isn’t even some random bar; it’s a private room for Heather’s twenty-first, and Steve doesn’t know Heather. So, it’s just Billy’s mind playing tricks on him again, because he’s pathetic, and because it’s Valentine’s day.

“Pretty shit party, hey?” someone says from beside him.

He turns to them, lips twisted in a sneer and a sharp retort on his tongue—he doesn’t feel like small talk—but it drops away as his whole body freezes. Steve smiles at him, but it’s less of a smile and more of a nervous baring of teeth. Billy can’t move, can’t breathe. He watches as Steve’s smile falls away, his eyes dropping to his feet.

“All right, I can take a hint,” Steve says, pushing away from the bar, but Billy grabs his elbow before he can leave.

He fucked this up. He doesn’t know how, but he screwed it up and Steve left him, and now he’s here and Billy doesn’t want to mess it up again.

But he still doesn’t know what went wrong.

“What’re you doing here?” he asks in what he hopes is a normal voice.

Steve shrugs. “Er, Tommy knows Ricky, who knows Courtney, who knows Katie, who knows Heather. I think.”

“You’re here with Tommy?” Billy’s chest sparks with anger. Tommy is an asshole, a slimy piece of shit who never treated Steve right and would sell out his own mom for a chance at attention.

He also likes to suck dick on the side. Or so Billy’s heard. The thought of someone else’s lips wrapped around Steve’s cock is too much, and he can’t take it, even if he has no right to object. The anger swells—

“Not that Tommy.”

Oh.

Steve regards him with an expression that is a little too knowing. He clears his throat, looks away and looks back again.

This time there’s something else in his eyes, something that sets a fire burning deep in Billy’s gut.

“Wanna get out of here?” Steve asks, voice pitched low beneath the laughter and drunken shrieks.

Billy thinks George Michael might be playing—some stupid, boppy song that’s probably going to hit number one and makes him think of Steve and his own stupid heart all in one.

He fucked this up, but Steve’s here. Gotta have faith.

“Yeah.”

Time passes in a blur. One minute, they’re surrounded by pink balloons and bad music, the next they’re back in Billy’s apartment, tangled in his sheets with their clothing abandoned on the floor. _Ram it Down_ is playing in Billy’s record player—the first thing he saved for and bought with his own money after moving to Chicago—and Steve is different. He’s confident, almost demanding.

And he’s loud.

They could never be loud before, and Billy hasn’t brought anyone back to his apartment even though he’s been here over a year now, and it’s all so new that Billy nearly freezes completely. How is it that he can be in his own bed with Steve moving on top of him, both of them moaning so loudly the neighbours have to be hearing this, there’s no way they can’t hear this, and he’s not in danger? How is this safe?

His eyes prickle dangerously, so he closes them and gives himself over to the way Steve is mouthing against his collarbone, to the hand that is drifting lower over Billy’s hips. Steve grinds down against Billy again and again, both of them hard and dripping. The slick slide of their cocks is almost sending Billy over the edge already, which is embarrassing but fuck it’s been so long he doesn’t even care.

“Billy?”

He hears the word but he doesn’t want to open his eyes. A warm mouth appears against his, gentle and insistent, coaxing him open until Billy can taste Steve—sweet and achingly familiar.

He opens his eyes. Steve pulls back an inch, coming into focus. There’s a tiny frown etched on his forehead.

“You okay?”

_No, don’t do this now._

Billy fights back the urge to attack, to shove Steve off him and run without looking back. He wants Steve here, wants to do whatever he needs to keep him.

“Yeah?”

Steve’s frown deepens and he pulls back further, which is just what Billy doesn’t want. His chest aches and his whole body is vibrating with an energy that feels like rage but he’s slowly learning isn’t quite rage at all. He shoves Steve off him, every muscle in his body protesting the distance, and sits up. The headboard presses into his shoulder blades, digging in painfully as he pushes as far away from Steve as he can without actually leaving.

“Don’t,” he says, knees drawn up in front of him and his arms crossed over the top.

The sheet pools over his hips, and Steve is sitting back against the far edge of the bed, closer to the door than Billy. If he left, Billy wouldn’t be able to stop him.

“Don’t what?” Steve asks instead of leaving.

_Don’t act like this means something._

Billy is more shocked than Steve is when he says the words aloud.

Steve’s eyes widen. “What? You think—” he pauses, and when he speaks again it’s calmer. A real question instead of a verbal slap. “You think this doesn’t mean anything to me? Or are you telling me it doesn’t mean anything to you?”

God, Billy’s itching for a fucking cigarette. His soul is trying to claw its way out of his skin and escape, but he stays still. Presses his shoulders back into the wood of the headboard and lets it ground him.

“You always meant more to me than I did to you,” he says, surprised that the words come out so calmly. “That’s fine. It’s just how it goes sometimes.”

Steve gapes at him, and for a second Billy thinks he’s fucked up again, though he still doesn’t know how. Then, Steve’s on top of him again.

“You fucking idiot,” Steve mouths against his jaw, and they’re kissing again, rougher and deeper than before.

The sheets disappear to the foot of the bed, kicked aside because apparently neither of them can stand to have anything in the way right now. Something falls onto the floor, and Billy thinks it might be the pillow that was propped against the headboard, thinks it must have been struck to the side when Steve grabbed Billy’s wrist and held it above his head.

Steve’s mouth is still gentle, but it’s the only part of him that is. It’s like something has broken in him, like he can no longer restrain himself; although even out of control, Steve is still _good_ in a way that Billy never is. Steve is rough and demanding and strong, but it doesn’t hurt. He isn’t taking anything from Billy—he’s giving.

He holds Billy down, slick fingers finding their way inside him and stroking in a relentless rhythm. It’s a sweet kind of torment; it’s the first time anything other than pain has grounded him.

Then Steve is inside him, the pace finally slowing as their bodies fall into a rhythm that makes them both clutch at the mattress and beg silently for more. When they used to do this, it was always in the dark, from behind. It was the only way Billy could stand it without wanting to run a thousand miles.

Fuck, all this time, he’s been missing out. The way Steve’s face relaxes into bliss would be enough to finish him, even without the mounting pleasure in Billy’s entire body. And then, Steve moans. It’s quiet and restrained, but Billy can see the way Steve bites on his lip to hold it back, see the way his eyes beg Billy for more even though Steve is the one in charge. It’s too much.

Billy closes his eyes, lips parting as he tips over the edge, and within seconds Steve is cresting too.

Both pillows have somehow fallen onto the floor, and when they finally break apart, the two of them lie on the empty bed and stare silently at the ceiling for long moments. There is a patch of mold on the panel above the window. Billy really needs to get it repaired, but now the apartment is always going to make him think of Steve, so maybe he just needs to move. Maybe the whole of Chicago is ruined for him. How far will he have to go before he stops being haunted by what he can never have?

Steve clears his throat, and Billy waits for it all to end.

“Do you want to give this another go?”

Billy turns to him. Steve’s hair is damp with sweat, sticking to his flushed forehead in thin strands. He’s beautiful, and Billy still doesn’t know what to say to him.

He tries anyway.

“This?” he asks, gesturing to the messy bed, the sheets that are going to smell like Steve forever now, no matter how many times he washes them. “Or this?” he draws his hand up to wave it between the two of them.

That small motion feels harder than anything he’s done before.

“This.” Steve says, letting his hand fall against Billy’s neck, fingers entwining in his hair.

It takes a moment before Billy can answer. His throat is choked up and he feels the strangest urge to lash out, spit words he doesn’t mean. He doesn’t.

Instead, he just says, “Yeah.”

 

__

 

**1989**

Steve watches Billy from across the table, heart fluttering against his ribs. Billy’s munching on his toast, leaning back in the chair, and there are crumbs at the corner of his mouth, a smear of crunchy peanut butter on his chin. Steve’s had a whole year of watching Billy eat breakfast, making a mess of the table, and Steve thinks he could have a lifetime of this moment, right here, and it wouldn’t be enough.

Billy kicks Steve's foot beneath the table. “What?”

“Nothing,” Steve says, looks down to his bowl of cereal. It's gone soggy. He takes a mouthful and screws his nose up as he forces himself to swallow. He bites his lip, looks back up at Billy. He’s been meaning to ask this for weeks, but could never gather up the courage. But it’s his last chance, so he says, “Look...I know you hate Valentine's Day, but it's our anniversary, too, and I'd like to do something tonight?”

Billy tenses. “Like what?”

Steve pauses. He had a few ideas, but nothing concrete. He didn't think Billy would hear him out and, honestly, Steve doesn't blame him. Valentine's Day hasn't been great for either of them. Two years running, they broke each other's hearts, and even though they pieced them back together, last year, the thought of Valentine's Day still sends a wave of nausea through Steve.

“I'll make dinner,” he says, though it comes out more of a question than he'd meant it to.

“You're going to cook?” Billy asked, brows raised. “Even after what happened last time?”

“That was an accident.” Steve flushes. His eyes dart to where the kitchen wall is still blackened with fire damage, then back to Billy. “Do you want me to make dinner for us, or not?”

“Sounds fine.” Billy shoves the last of his toast in his mouth and checks his watch. “I'm gonna be late,” he says, “I'll see you tonight.” He stands and turns but Steve grabs his wrist, stopping him.

“Forgetting something?”

“No,” Billy says, slowly, then rolls his eyes when Steve points to the corner of his mouth. He leans down and kisses Steve, familiar and warm. “See you after work,” he says and grabs his jacket and keys on the way out.

“Bye,” Steve says to the closed door and leans his elbows on the table.

Some days this life they’ve built together, in the little dingy apartment where they made love after Heather’s party, feels like a dream. Steve had put everything on the line, that night, when he asked Billy if he wanted to give it another go but it was worth it.

It was the hardest question he'd ever asked anyone but Billy said yes and Steve moved in not even a month later and maybe that was way too fast but Steve didn't want to waste another minute not waking up beside Billy.

It's been rocky, sure, but they've been happy, Steve thinks. It's been good. Somewhere in the back of his mind he's waiting for it all to blow up in his face, though, waiting for it all to be taken from him again. And that's why tonight has to be perfect.

He clears the table, tips the rest of the cereal into the disposal, and starts a mental list of what he'll need to pick up on the way to the office.

It's going to be perfect.

It has to be.

“What’s all this?” Billy asks, that evening, staring at the table.

“Dinner,” Steve says, his stomach in knots. He'd taken off early from work and come home, arms laden with brown paper bags full of groceries, candles, and a bottle of the kind of wine Billy doesn't hate.

“Did we forget to pay the electricity?” Billy asks, jutting his chin at the candles on the table, all around the apartment.

Steve had had to stick them in empty beer bottles because they don't have anything resembling candlesticks but it ended up looking good. Or he'd thought it had. “No, it's, you know, romantic.”

“If you're a pyromaniac.”

Steve claps, slowly, and says, “He's here all night ladies and gentlemen.”

Billy huffs. “We gonna eat or what?” he asks, sliding into his chair.

Even though Steve knows all of his expressions better than his own, he can't tell what Billy is thinking, right now. “Sure,” he says, and turns to the kitchen, with one last glance at Billy over his shoulder.

They eat in a silence that Steve is reluctant to break with the air between them thick with tension. He doesn't want to say the wrong thing and when Billy gets like this it feels like anything is the wrong thing to say.

Billy pokes at the pasta on his plate, moving it around, but doesn’t eat anything.

Steve bites his lip. Hesitates. And then, “Is it OK?”

“It's fine.”

Steve reaches across the table, spears a piece of Billy’s pasta with his fork, shoves it in his mouth. It’s a little plain, so he salts the pasta on Billy’s plate, stirs it in.

Billy rolls his eyes. “Stop fussing. Jesus.”

Steve raises his hands. “Sorry. I just want this to be…”

A muscle in Billy's jaw ticks. “Be what?”

“Perfect.”

Billy snorts. “Not possible.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

Steve lets it go. He’s worried if he pulls at that thread everything will unravel. But after another five minutes of excruciating silence he says, “Look, did I do something wrong?”

“Not everything is about you.”

It feels like Steve’s been doused in cold water. “You can be a real asshole, sometimes.”

“I'm the asshole? You're the one who—”

“I'm the one who what?”

“Why are you so obsessed with everything being perfect?” Billy fists his hands over the edge of the table, leans forward. He jabs a thumb into his own chest. “I'm not perfect, if you hadn't noticed.”

“What? No...I...I know. I mean. No one is?” Steve sighs and runs a hand over his face. “Just tell me what you want me to say.”

“Fuck it.” Billy stands, knocking the chair over. He stalks to the door and grabs his jacket, then leaves without another word.

It’s only been a minute, maybe two, since Billy slammed the door shut but it feels like an eternity. Steve stares at the door—there’s a dent just below the doorknob from when they’d been moving their kitchen table in because Steve refused to keep eating off of the coffee table.

It was too big for the apartment and too big to get through the door without a lot of manoeuvring but it was the one Steve had his heart set on. They’d bickered the whole way up the stairs, the table between them, and it all blew up when it made that dent. But then one of them had started laughing at something—Steve doesn’t remember what now—and it set the other off and then Steve had pushed Billy onto the table and the argument was forgotten.

Steve blinks, eyes pricking. His heart is in his throat, and he feels all hollowed out. There’s a moment when he thinks that this is it, again, that they’re just never going to work together. They’re too different. That one or the other of them will keeping fucking up.

But, no. No. He’s not going to accept that this time. They work, he knows they do. So he grabs his coat and keys and opens the door only to find Billy on the other side.

“You came back,” Steve says.

Billy blinks and looks away. He bites his thumbnail. “I never left,” he says.

“Oh?” Steve’s heart is thudding hard.

“I didn’t _want_ to leave. I want to be here. With you.” Billy’s face is flushed, his words bitten out like he’s holding back something. He thumps his hand against the door frame. “If you don’t know that, then…” He deflates and shakes his head, looks back at Steve.

“I know,” Steve says, quickly. He lets out a long breath. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” Billy sighs. “Anyway, I’ve got nowhere else to go,” he says, voice like shattered glass.

Steve makes a small, desperate noise in the back of his throat and reaches out, pulling Billy into his arms. He kisses Billy like his life depends on it and Billy kisses him back. When they break away, Steve cradles Billy’s face between his palms and says, “Baby, you don’t need anywhere else to go.”

 

**__**

 

**1990**

The street outside Billy and Steve’s window has been painted pink—not with meticulous brush strokes but rather by way of a ten gallon tin of paint thrown at the ground in the rough shape of a love-heart. The young artist, who Billy caught sight of at two this morning when he heard voices outside, has even gone the tried and true method of painting his name and his lover’s in the centre of the heart.

It’s sickeningly typical; Billy hopes it works out for him.

Steve rolls over, his leg entwining with the blankets and pulling them with him. A rush of cold hits Billy’s skin as he’s exposed to the frigid morning air, but he doesn’t tug the blankets back. There had been a problem down at the office, and Steve hadn’t gotten home until late last night. He never sleeps well after he’s put in over time; his brain takes so much longer to turn off. Billy wants to give him as much of a sleep in as possible.

Besides, it’s not as if they have anything planned for the day. Not really. He glances over at Steve, warmth rising in his chest as he counts the moles on Steve’s back for something to do. He counts twelve then goes back to the beginning, eyes tracing a path he wants his fingers to follow. A year and a day ago, he nearly lost this—again. And then he didn’t.

He still remembers the moment Steve opened the door to him. Everything had been crashing down, his thoughts swirling into the mess of anger and self-hatred they always did when he fucked something up beyond repair, and then the door had opened. And Steve had spoken to him, and Billy had said things too, things that were real and vulnerable and so removed from the usual vitriol he sank into like a familiar jacket that it almost felt like someone else was talking.

Everything changed after that. Not in grand signs or sweeping gestures, but in small things that added up to something new. Steve mentioned a new band he wanted to see, and Billy got them tickets, and they went, and they didn’t fight. Billy found a cafe down the street that served slow poached eggs that looked weird but tasted great, and Steve took him there for his birthday, and they didn’t fight. Steve started eating this disgusting brand of dark chocolate that made Billy barf, but Billy would buy it and hide it behind the coffee maker when Steve was having a bad day. And they didn’t fight.

When Billy spoke, and the words on his tongue were strange, it slowly stopped feeling like someone else was talking. He doesn’t understand what has changed, but he’s beyond grateful that it has.

“Oh my _god!_ ” a girl’s voice shrieks from outside the window.

Billy leans across the bed, propping his elbow on the splintery window sill and gazing down at the scene below.

“Ricky! Oh my god, Ricky! This is the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me!”

The girl is crying now, openly sobbing as the kid who painted the heart hugs her. God, he’s probably a senior but he looks eleven; was Billy ever that young?

The bed shifts beside him, and Steve joins him in leaning out the window and watching the commotion.

“Kid tried too hard,” Billy says, pulling a cigarette out from the pack beside the bed and sticking it between his lips to hide his smile.

“I think it’s sweet.”

Steve has a dopey smile on his face, the kind he gets when he finds the chocolates Billy hides, or when he opens the newspaper in the morning and concert tickets fall out. Billy used to think it was fake. Now, he can tell the difference between what’s fake and what is real enough to trust.

“You would, Harrington.” Billy’s voice is fond. Even the cigarette can’t mask that.

The word ‘Harrington’ is no longer used to increase the distance between them; it’s an affectionate nickname that bridges it instead.

Steve holds his hand out for the pack, and Billy passes it over. Then he places the small, pink box of chocolates on top of it. Steve looks down in confusion for a few seconds, and then his eyes widen.

“They did a Valentine’s assortment?” he asks, grinning as he tears off the pink ribbon. “That’s awesome.”

Billy searched through three stores before finding it. It isn’t a very popular brand; fuck knows why Steve likes it. He has the taste buds of an old man. One day, Billy will walk in and he’ll be chewing on licorice.

The lid of the box falls onto the bed between them, and when Billy looks up, Steve has already devoured three chocolates in a row. There’s a dollop of chocolate on his bottom lip, and he looks like a hamster with how full his cheeks are.

He sees Billy watching and chokes a little. “Sorry, do you want some?” he mumbles around coconut flakes and dark chocolate.

“Fuck no.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Your loss.”

At least, Billy thinks that’s what he says. It comes out more like _mrphor moss_. He laughs, the sound breaking away from him and filling the room. Steve grins at him, his teeth sticky with food.

“You’re revolting.” Billy’s still laughing, the motion of it shaking the bed beneath them.

Steve’s eyes take on a wicked gleam. He swallows the last of the chocolate. “Revolting, am I?” he asks, throwing the covers away, onto the floor, as he straddles Billy’s legs.

Billy’s breath hitches, and the cigarette falls from his lips onto his chest. “Ah, fuck!” he hisses, grabbing for it, but Steve has already plucked it free, taken a drag, and ground it out on the sill.

Then, his mouth descends on Billy’s, tasting like old-man chocolate and smoke. It should be gross, but Billy gasps into it, already hard and grinding up against Steve’s thighs. He’ll never get sick of kissing Steve, never, never, never.

“I got you something too,” Steve says, pulling back and drifting lower, teasing him with his lips as he goes.

Billy moans, his voice almost as loud as the couple down on the street.

Steve’s lips wrap around him, and Billy forgets how to think. Everything has changed and nothing has changed and Billy no longer remembers what it’s like to wake up alone. He twists his fingers in Steve’s hair, slightly stiff from the remnants of yesterday’s hair spray, and closes his eyes and tries to come back down to earth just a little. Because it’s almost embarrassing how good Steve makes him feel, and he wants to be prepared in case it’s all about to shatter.

But he doesn’t think it is, and he can’t come back down to earth no matter how hard he tries.

Steve twists his tongue, hollowing his cheeks, and Billy soars over the edge, gasping Steve’s name for far longer than he should. He’s still somehow saying it when Steve is lying beside him, their hands entwined and faces flushed.

Steve grins at him. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Against all odds, it is.

“You too, Harrington.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos to Batman Returns for inspiring the "Honey I'm home... oh that's right, I'm single" line; we couldn't resist.
> 
> There's a moodboard for the fic [here!](https://gothyringwald.tumblr.com/post/182814640955/the-ongoing-trials-of-two-idiots-in-love-by)
> 
> Thanks for reading <3 Come find [gothyringwald](https://gothyringwald.tumblr.com/) over on tumblr with many fabulous playlists, moodboards, and Harringrove feels. If you say socknonny three times into the bathroom mirror she'll appear and compliment your hair. It looks amazing btw.


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